Which really bugs me as it guarantees that publishers will put less effort into such things. I don't like that Bethesda is basically squeaking by here. Fallout 4 is, perhaps, one of the worst running games on consoles at the moment. It hearkens back to the dark days of late PS360 releases. It's not acceptable.
Witcher 3 was bad enough, but Fallout 4 is a much uglier game and has even more severe performance issues.
Which is why it's your duty so to speak to be the loud-hailer of those more discerning gamers. You may be in the minority but you are vocal and are granted immediate visibility through Digital Foundry, so in the end I believe it can make a difference. No publishers like having their games' performance questioned, it puts further pressure on them to fix them. I bet that if they could silence outlets dissecting the performance and IQ of their games they would.
In fact I would not be surprised if some of your requests for technical stipulations of various nature remain unanswered because the publisher said no. The devs themselves might be open for discussion and level-headed debate but the publishers could put their veto on the grounds that anything remotely affecting sales needs to be carefully evaluated. Imagine if one candid technical lead told you about all the mistakes, the weaknesses of their engines, the sacrifices they had to accept because of hardware or budgetary constraints. That would put their games in a bad light, imagine that a developper openly admitting shortcomings !
Years after the game ships perhaps, but not around one AAA launch. Publishers want tech interviews to be bankable, they don't care about actual technical investigations. Which is why the majority (not DF's) are dull and void, they are selling a product first and foremost.
I admit I don't have 100% visibility on such things but it seems to me that more and more gamers are actually paying attention to technical details regardless of platforms, back in my days (born in 1990) it did not seem to make any difference.
I never remember talking about resolution or framerate until I entered the amazing world of PC gaming, my avid console friends and I had no idea about 30 or 60fps, we played many games which performed poorly.
I will confess I miss those days when I could simply "enjoy" a game with literally zeo fucks given about IQ, framerate, AF, shimmering anti-aliasing, stutter etc. I will go even further and plainly admit I'm envious of those people now. Those considerations have scarred my brain, it has become impossible for me to lay back and just, you know, game without worrying or wondering about technology.
I blame PC gaming for that, but that was perhaps unavoidable as gaming forums are rife with technical debates so I would have ended up noticing and paying attention to that more and more. I know many people (PC and console gamers) who told me they hate Neogaf and gaming forums save for echo chambers like sub Reddits because it made them cognizant of things they just did not want anything to do with.
Regarding The Witcher 3, I did not play it on consoles but from the various pieces of console footage it's not that bad at all. Not perfectly locked 30fps but the dips frankly are not too in-your-face.
For now Fallout 4 runs a bit forse than that, maybe Bethesda will do something about it and the more it is reported the higher the chances they will.
